> At the local level, Green Party activists (as well as young Campus
> Greens) did a reasonably good job, being an indispensable part of
> activist coalitions in most communities where Greens have solid
> presence.
Yes, there are local areas where the GP is doing things, but in areas where it is essentially inert (like mine), it's hard to work up an interest.
> As the Green Party (unlike the Democratic Party, the Workers World
> Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Committee of
> Correspondence and its allied peace organizations, all of which have
> created their own anti-war "coalitions") is very decentralized, it is
> extremely difficult to work out and actually implement a coherent
> strategy of doing third-party organizing in the context of various
> social movements, not to use the social movements as fishing ponds but
> so that both the party and movements will grow together. It is not
> clear how to solve this problem without sacrificing democracy in the
> party.
Does "democracy" actually require the kind of extreme decentralization Greens practice? "Democracy" that makes it impossible to do anything on a national level (even agreeing on a single presidential candidate) is a bit futile, I would think, but, as in so many things, tastes in political organizing styles differ -- that's what makes horse races.
> It would be good for more Americans to learn Spanish, but English and
> Spanish are similar enough that, if you are curious, you can parse
> what's posted in Spanish with Google's translation feature (or some
> such free machine-translation device) and supplemental recourses to a
> Spanish-English dictionary.
As I've posted lately, I'm very dubious about the virtues of "machine translation" (especially the free Web type) in political matters; it's as apt to foster international mis-communication as communication. But hey -- as long as it doesn't do any serious harm, it's worth trying out.
> If I could, I'd post materials in Japanese and Chinese, too, but
> (being technologically challenged) I have yet to learn how to do so
> with Eudora and Blogger (if anyone has a clue, email me offlist).
AFAIK, any up-to-date browser or mail client can handle Unicode, and most have a choice of Japanese and Chinese text codings, which is all you need to get into business. If someone is using old versions, though, they may find themselves out in the cold.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax